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To
understand and to consider the value and the characteristics that something has
at the very beginning, it is of supreme importance to realize the identity and
essence of that something.

Later
there could come other things, deviations and distortions. But that something
that was at the beginning has priority over all that could come later, and
should be the leading thread of our thoughts.

When I
wrote my latest book in Spanish; “OVNIs:
La Agenda Secreta” (UFOs: The Secret Agenda) in 2000, with an update in
2003 that won the International Zurich Prize awarded by the Spanish “Fundación
Anomalía” in 2004, and another update in 2007 for the Uruguayan edition, I
didn’t know of the existence of a very important book published in 1998, which
I found later in a public library.

In
that book I’ve found a description of the psycho-social situation of the
American people in 1947, when Kenneth Arnold’s observation on June, 24 would
take place, which traditionally is considered “the case that started it all”.

I have
found that the beginning, the environment at that time when people started
talking about “flying saucers” is important, unavoidable, and has the top
priority as the cornerstone of all what happened later.But regretfully, it was deliberately
distorted.

This
situation emerges from the authorized word of two prominent scientists, two
academics, who decided to deal with the UFO subject from their respective
disciplines.

What
follows is –first of all— a summary of the fundamental concepts that are part
of Chapter 9 of the book, and later an analysis of what the authors say.

What I
would like to share with you is a sober, down-to-earth reflection about the UFO
subject, and it results in a demonstration that reinforces the main conclusions
at which I have arrived, after decades of investigating, studying and reaching explanations
about many UFO reports, as well as a study of the subject altogether.

I have
also to add the amount of international contacts with the best investigators,
the search for information coming from different sources, the interviews with
technicians, Internet research, and the reading of nearly 300 books about UFOs,
natural phenomena, meteorological phenomena, photography, astronomy,
aeronautics, etc.

The
book I am talking about is “UFOs &
Alien Contact – Two Centuries of Mystery”, 1998, Prometeus Books, New York,
408 pages, written by Robert E. Bartholomew, Sociology investigator at the
James Cook University in North Queensland, Australia, and George S. Howard,
Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, USA.

On
Chapter 9 of the book, under the title “Flying Saucers Come of Age”and the sub-title: “The Unique Context of the 1947
Saucer Scare” the authors
wrote:

“For the past fifty
years or so the most common folk theory about UFO reports involves the
existence of extraterrestrials. However, given America’s cold war mindset, this
view was not expressed at the time of Kenneth Arnold’s highly publicized
“saucer” sighting.The American
obsession with the cold war and possible atomic conflict was reflected in the
explanations for the sightings. On August 15, 1947, a Gallup poll revealed that
90 percent of Americans surveyed were aware of the flying-saucer sightings and
that most believed that U.S. or foreign secret weapons, hoaxes, and balloons
were responsible.”

On
the same subject, L.Gross, in “UFOs: A
History, Volume 1”, July 1947-December 1948 (Scotia N.Y.Arcturus Books, 1982, p.30), says: “Nothing [.in the poll] was said about ‘alien
visitors’, not even a measurable 1 percent toyed with the concept”

Bartholomew
and Cook add: “In fact, Kenneth
Arnold made his now-famous sighting public, despite possible ridicule, “for
patriotic reasons”, telling Associated Press on June 2t6, 1947, that he
believed they may have been ´guided missiles´.”

And
now comes what for me is the most important part of what these scholars have to
say about the process that began the trend toward the extraterrestrials.

I
need to reproduce in extent what the authors say because it is a unique piece,
a jewel, something of outstanding relevance:

“The common notion
that flying saucers represented a U.S. or foreign secret weapon continued to
dominate popular opinion through May 1950, when a Public Opinion Quarterlypoll appeared.Of the 94 percent of Americans surveyed who had heard of “flying
saucers” most (23 percent) believed them to be secret military devices. Only 5
percent placed them in the category of “comets, shooting stars; something from
another planet”.Later in 1950 the
secret-weapon explanation dramatically shifted to an extraterrestrial
explanation, and has remained so ever since. The primary reason for this
attitude change was the publication of several popular books and magazine
articles advocating the extraterrestrial hypothesis. A bestselling book The Flying Saucers Are Real (1950), by retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe,
is one example.Frank Scully´s Behind the Flying Saucers (1950) claimed that extraterrestrials from a
crashed saucer were being kept at a secret U.S. military installation. The book
sold sixty thousand copies and was later revealed a hoax. In The Riddle of the Flying Saucers: Is Another World
Watching? (1950), science writer
Gerald Heard claimed that extraterrestrial “bees” were responsible for the
sighting reports. As a result of these books and continued press accounts of
sightings, numerous popular articles soon appeared in such magazines as Life, Look, Time, Newsweek and Popular Science, typically
emphasizing the extraterrestrial hypothesis.From the standpoint of popular literature, it is interesting that
between 1947 and January 9, 1950, The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literaturelists eight magazine articles on flying
saucers. However, reflecting the period´s popular belief, these articles were
listed under the headings of “Illusions and Hallucinations”, “Aeronautics”,
“Aeroplanes”, and “Balloons-Use in Research”. Beginning in 1952, and continuing
to the present, the extraterrestrial theory was solidified as the dominant
motif in UFO movie and television portrayals.” (pages 191 to 193).

Analysis of Chapter 9

1947 is a key year
in the life of the United States of America. It is when the Army Air Corps is
separated from the Army to become the U.S. Air Force. It is also –given the
confrontational environment between the Western block and the Soviet one, the
year of the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency.

These
two aspects reflect the big concern and the fear that were in the United States
about an infiltration of Soviet agents in the society, as well as that of a
sudden attack with atomic bombs. That gave reason for the emergence of the two
institutions pointed out in the precedent paragraph.

The
authors describe very well that situation in the first paragraph of Chapter 9.

Therefore,
the occurrence of the Arnold case must be considered in the middle of that
particular environment.

Arnold
declared to A.P. on June 26, that he made known his observation, overcoming the
possible ridicule, “for patriotic reasons”.
He thought that what he saw could have been “guided missiles”.

This
declaration throws down immediately any possible explanation of what Arnold saw
via a natural phenomenon. He was an experienced private pilot. He thought he
saw a product of some technology; a product that was “guided” as he said,
because the nine objects flew in formation, one behind the other.

One
clear sign of the fear during the Cold War was that even the FBI started a kind
of “witch-hunt” investigating the background of simple citizens who claimed to
have seen “flying saucers”.

This
kind of paranoia was also applied to certain institutions dedicated to
investigate the UFO subject, like it was done with the Aerial Phenomena
Research Organization (APRO) founded by Jim and Coral Lorenzen that was the
first private institution created in the United States.

But
the most relevant thing is what the American people thought about the “flying
saucers”.The survey done on August 15,
1947 revealed that 90% of the people thought that the flying saucers were
secret weapons, hoaxes and balloons. There was not even a 1% that played with
the concept of “alien visitors”.

I find
this forceful. No one, absolutely no one, two months after the Arnold case,
thought even remotely in extraterrestrials. “Secret weapons of the United
States, hoaxes and balloons”. Those were the ideas people managed trying to
explain what they saw in the sky.

And
this way of thinking was kept strong three years later of the Arnold case, as
it was revealed by another survey conducted on May 15, 1950.

For
the first time, this second survey offers the idea of “something from another
planet” which receives a meager 5% of answers. Other possibilities of this
survey were “comets, shooting stars”.

But
this survey was testing the waters.

Because
starting after these results there will be the elaboration by the intelligence
of various organizations of a strategy with the specific purpose to change
substantially the way the American population would think.

And
pursuing that goal the best allies will be the mass media: magazines, books,
films and TV. It will be there where the dissemination of the idea of “flying
saucers” as extraterrestrial crafts will be done.

It is
necessary to clearly see the big operation, the vast maneuver. The mind switch
was not spontaneous, it didn´t happened by chance. It was the result of a
deliberated and well planned effort to impose an idea on the masses.

Only
the ignorance about how everything was managed since 1950 until today, can
explain that people do not realize that they have been and continue been
massively deceived, misinformed and manipulated.

That
is why, it is sane to analyze all of this and find the truth behind the
appearances; that secret agenda that works behind articles in newspapers and
magazines, behind books and pseudo-documentaries shown in TV channels like
“Discovery” or the “History Channel, and the production of TV series and films.

The
cover-up of “the extraterrestrial” served to hide experiments, projects, and
ultra-secret operations of aircrafts –some of them of very strange look at. And
this began in the United States. That is its origin and no one can deny it.

Decades
after, other countries took advantage of this kind of cover-up to hide their
own experiments with new aircrafts and other military and intelligence
activities like for instance France, Great Britain, Russia, and now China.

Therefore,
to go back to the beginning and take into account the ideas in force at that
time, when everything was clean, innocent and well intentioned, spontaneous, is
the hermeneutic key to understand the whole issue developed later, where we are
now and why we came to the current situation.

In me,
it was an initial suspicion that led me to a large amount of research, on
libraries, through the Internet, meeting with technicians and collecting
documents.

And
then, came the moment of truth. The moment when I felt that the same reasons
that lead me to investigate and study UFO reports, pushed me now to share the
truth I’ve found with as much people as possible.